I'm discovering that style switching mid-combo and many times during fights is the way to go. You can string together almost non-stop combos if the enemy doesn't bother to block by switching back and forth between martial and weapon styles mid combo. I like switching to weapon style first because of the range, start the combo, then switch to martial in close and keep the string going. I also like starting a combo with weapon style, switch immediately to heavenly wave, and then switch to martial style. The aoe heavenly wave slow is very helpful against multiple foes.

The easiest harmonic combo I've found early in the game is using the power move for ice shard which freezes the target in place, and then following up immediately with a martial style power move. Dire flame is a little trickier since the baddy isn't frozen, and can interupt or block your martial power move. The ice shard harmonic combo drops a spirit power-up and dire flame drops a health power-up.

I'm discovering that style switching mid-combo and many times during fights is the way to go. You can string together almost non-stop combos if the enemy doesn't bother to block by switching back and forth between martial and weapon styles mid combo. I like switching to weapon style first because of the range, start the combo, then switch to martial in close and keep the string going. I also like starting a combo with weapon style, switch immediately to heavenly wave, and then switch to martial style. The aoe heavenly wave slow is very helpful against multiple foes.

The easiest harmonic combo I've found early in the game is using the power move for ice shard which freezes the target in place, and then following up immediately with a martial style power move. Dire flame is a little trickier since the baddy isn't frozen, and can interupt or block your martial power move. The ice shard harmonic combo drops a spirit power-up and dire flame drops a health power-up.

Yep, I got one other harmonic combo with heavenly wave and thousand cuts, but I have no clue how I did it-but I do the ice shard and thousand cut combo all the time-early on it feels overpowering, but then I encountered an enemy that resists Ice, so no worries! I am glad I chose ice-it looks cool and I think first open palm philosophy better than fire.

Quick question for ice users, what does the A+X AOE attack actually...yknow, do? I see snow fall, and then occassionally a chunk of ice hits someone and does a modicum of damage. Thats it.

I'm discovering that style switching mid-combo and many times during fights is the way to go. You can string together almost non-stop combos if the enemy doesn't bother to block by switching back and forth between martial and weapon styles mid combo. I like switching to weapon style first because of the range, start the combo, then switch to martial in close and keep the string going. I also like starting a combo with weapon style, switch immediately to heavenly wave, and then switch to martial style. The aoe heavenly wave slow is very helpful against multiple foes.

The easiest harmonic combo I've found early in the game is using the power move for ice shard which freezes the target in place, and then following up immediately with a martial style power move. Dire flame is a little trickier since the baddy isn't frozen, and can interupt or block your martial power move. The ice shard harmonic combo drops a spirit power-up and dire flame drops a health power-up.

You know I was just thinking, I have really never tried to switch style mid combo, so you like, start of with a regular A attack from say, sword style, switch to thousand cuts and hit em with an A attack, move to heavenly wave and X power attack them, and rinse repeat? that actually works as a chain of moves?

You can switch styles during a combo at any point, and as long as you keep pressing A the string will continue.

I have no freaking clue what the aoe ice attack does either. Snow falls doing seemingly nothing, and a few seconds later a big ice chunk will fall on a random bad guy for minimal damage. The baddies in the aoe radius don't have any status effect applied from the attack either, so I really don't know what it does. On the other hand, the dire flame aoe is nice, and will damage and immolate all within the radius. Immolate functions kind of like a stun, preventing enemies from attacking while they have that effect.

I was also worried about ice shard being overpowered, but even in normal mode baddies and bosses later in the game seem to be able to dodge out of the way pretty easy (unless they're engaged by an active follower!).

I'm still trying to work the transformation styles into fights. I haven't relied on them much just because of the fast chi drain.

Picked this up today at Fry's for $36.99. Hard to resist the temptation to try it out but I'm already 15 hours into a replay of FFX and 1/4 of the way through God of War and don't really need to add another to the currently playing pile.

Picked this up today at Fry's for $36.99. Hard to resist the temptation to try it out but I'm already 15 hours into a replay of FFX and 1/4 of the way through God of War and don't really need to add another to the currently playing pile.

Dude other than MGS you really do have good taste. I was about 8 hours into a replay of FFX before God of War, DDS, JE, and a bunch of other games came out and distracted me, and goddamn does that game hold up. What an incredible RPG that was. Anyways, more JE and combo testing for me later tonight!!

I do find I dislike one aspect of Bioware games lately. Why on earth do they insist on having some sort of conversation before hard fights? I seem to notice it more with this game than any other, but I remember several annoying instances of this in both KOTOR games as well.

Since I am still having trouble with the combat on normal, I usually get my butt handed to me at least once during tough battles, and it is really annoying to have to sit through the same conversation at least twice, without being able to actually influence anything by the "choices" of responce (no matter what I say, the fight is initiated). Why not save the game after the conversation, so that when I inevitably die the first time, I don't have to sit through that crap again? Grrr.

Seeing as how my lack of combat skills and the conversations before fights are my only gripes, I'm pretty sure I will finish this game. Other than the above, I am still loving the game, and it just opened up a bit with a huge town to explore, full of side quests. I love the silly little flying game too. Great as a mini game to play around with. I wonder what other mini games are in there? At least one more, I believe. I hope it is some kind of card or strategy game...

Dude other than MGS you really do have good taste. I was about 8 hours into a replay of FFX before God of War, DDS, JE, and a bunch of other games came out and distracted me, and goddamn does that game hold up. What an incredible RPG that was. Anyways, more JE and combo testing for me later tonight!!

Ah DDS- I came *so* close to picking that one up today while at Fry's. Just couldn't justify it to the wife. Jade Empire was justified because it was on sale (very convenient, that).

It's funny - I love the combat in this game. Yeah, it's somewhat simple (although all the new strageties I've seen pop up are going to make it much more fun next time I play), but it just works.

Also - dodge, jump, roll, whatever. Always work on getting position. Show off that acrobatic style the game wants you to do.

As far as my first Harmonic Combo, right near the beginning of the game I did a power attack slow and then a power attack martial strike. The enemy outright exploded into a shower of blood that coated the ground for a minute afterwards. Reminded me of a Mortal Kombat fatality or something.

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I have yet to get a harmonic combo, I must suck or somethin heh. I am really loving the game, in chapter 3 currently. I think the best part has been an NPC I encountered in the Scholar's Garden of the city... wish I wrote his name down, absoultely fantastic writing for the character and encounter. I am glad the combat isn't any more complex then it is... it wouldn't be an RPG to me then. If I had to master the fighting like I would in a game like tekken I would not play the game... I just suck at pure fighting games.

The promoter character in the arena is great. The dialogue options you have when you first meet him are tremendous. Anyone familiar with Don King should at least rent the game and play through to chapter 3 just to see this.

I've put about two hours into the game. I'm definitely enjoying the game, as it has the typical Bioware mystique that i've enjoyed through all of their games. However, I do have a few complaints:

1) The graphics are less impressive than what I had hoped to see. Perhaps later in the game things get better, but for the moment I feel that Fable did a much better job on the overall detail of the environments. I'm not sure if playing in 480p would make a difference, as I've never used an HDTV before.

2) From the character models you can choose from, I was disappointed to see how ugly the men are. I almost decided to play a woman because they look so much better. It would have been nice to change hair style, face shape, etc.

3) Compared to previous Bioware titles, I'm rather disappointed at how unimpressive the music is in heightening the atmosphere. It is overly subdued in comparison to previous titles, especially Baldur's Gate.

Other than these three disappointments, I think the game exhibits the typical Bioware flair. The dialogue is entertaining, the environments are immersive and the overall production quality is quite high. Unfortuanately, I don't see it bringing much new to the table, so if you've been disappointed with previous Bioware titles I don't think Jade Empire will change your mind.

I must admit, I was really hoping for something special and dramatically different from Bioware this time around. In my head I saw Jade Empire as the cultivation and distilling of Bioware's strengths, with special attention paid to eliminating their usual weaknesses. Instead it is typical Bioware with a new fighting system and a fresh coat of paint.

Some improvements I'd like to see in future Bioware (or other North American/European console RPGs)

-Less "on rails" exploration. There needs to be a happy medium between the exploration seen in games like Fable, Jade Empire, and Sudeki, in comparison to the extreme freedom seen in Morrowind. I'd like to see more secret paths, hidden caves and unmapped villages in these games. And one or two of these hidden areas should have a complex subquest, not just a simple FedEx carrier quest.

-More items and weapons. Games like Diablo II and Baldur's Gate threw an amazing amount of items and weapons in your path. Most North American RPGs skimp on the goods.

-Make my NPC companion feel like a part of my life, and not just a staple-on sidekick. Have him/her occasionally interrupt a conversion and speak their mind. Have them occasionally comment about the environment or their past history. Let them save my life once. Just make them meaningful! In an old Japanese RPG I once played, every evening when you would rest at an inn, the characters would gather around a table and talk about their lives or joke around for a minute or two. When one of these characters died, I really felt the loss at the evening meal. The other NPCs would even comment on it. Best of all, when the game ended it showed you looking through a photo album at all of the characters who died in your quest. Superimposed over their image, there was a ghostly faint reproduction of the moment when they died, almost as if you were thinking back to the moment you lost them.

Make my NPC companion feel like a part of my life, and not just a staple-on sidekick. Have him/her occasionally interrupt a conversion and speak their mind. Have them occasionally comment about the environment or their past history.

Gotta disagree with you here. This is an area that I think Bioware has excelled at since Baldur's Gate 2. I haven't played Jade Empire yet, but in BG2, NWN, and KOTOR you would often have NPCs break in during conversations depending on who you had in your party at a given time. Each NPC also would have their own unique, major subquest dealing with their past history. This is one of Bioware's strongest areas IMO.

Gotta disagree with you here. This is an area that I think Bioware has excelled at since Baldur's Gate 2. I haven't played Jade Empire yet, but in BG2, NWN, and KOTOR you would often have NPCs break in during conversations depending on who you had in your party at a given time. Each NPC also would have their own unique, major subquest dealing with their past history. This is one of Bioware's strongest areas IMO.

I definitely agree that Bioware is better than most companies, but I still don't think they go far enough. Since you haven't played Jade Empire yet I can tell you I have seen my NPC partner break in and try to converse with me once while I was travelling. The conversation about her past was also relatively engaging. As you've stated, Bioware is good at doing this in certain RPGs (BG2 being the role model), but I felt they took a step backward in KotOR and NWN. I must reserve judgement on Jade Empire beause I'm still in the initial periods of the game.

Perhaps I should have said I desire a more refined relationship with my NPCs. I've seen very few RPGs handle the concept of NPC death with any real substance. This includes Bioware and Baldur's Gate 2. The Jaheira (sp?) subplot with her dead husband was good, but he started out already dead in BG2 so there was no real connection to him. The other NPCs, when killed, could be simply resurrected so there was no feeling of loss. I would have liked, for example, to see other NPC part members comment on the death, or remind me that Minsc needed to be resurrected, or see them become upset that I was a poor leader in battle and caused his death. Personally, I also think more NPCs should permanently die in an RPG. Saving the world shouldn't be so antiseptic.

And I'm not just referring to my party NPCs. For example, I'd like to see an RPG that had a central "Magic oddities" store where you must go and purchase unique and interesting items. Every time you visit the store, the shop owner has a little story to tell, or asks about your life. Over time, a friendship of sorts arises. He gives you discounts, offers advice, etc. Unfortunately, one day when you return his shop is burned to the ground, and you discover (through a short quest) that your enemies torched the store looking for you. Now the store, a blossoming friendship, and all those unique items are gone forever. A man's life was lost because he befriended you. Other people in the town are afraid to speak to you after learning what happened. Perhaps later you could return to the town and discover that his son is rebuilding the store.

THAT is what I want to see- death with more meaning and decisions with heightened ramifications.

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The writing/story is great so far. I did one sidequest that was quite emotional - I found myself feeling bad for certain people. Well done!

You know I was just thinking, I have really never tried to switch style mid combo, so you like, start of with a regular A attack from say, sword style, switch to thousand cuts and hit em with an A attack, move to heavenly wave and X power attack them, and rinse repeat? that actually works as a chain of moves?

Actually, Harmonics works this way : Hit target with either support or magic, then switch to a martial and hit them with an "X" attack.

When they die they'll drop whatever the combination yielded. If you want info, Tien's Landing (2nd town) has two masters. Talk to the Closed Fist master; he gives you the basics.

I don't know if it stacks (so if you repeat the same combo you get more, and with another combo you'd get both, etc...).

I'm about to go clear the ghosts and close the dam; I'll be testing the different combos later tonight. Also, I don't know why, but when I use some of my attacks, a ring appears around the feet of the target. Any idea as to why?

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2) From the character models you can choose from, I was disappointed to see how ugly the men are. I almost decided to play a woman because they look so much better. It would have been nice to change hair style, face shape, etc.

If you have the Limited Edition, load up the second disk. Monk is worth it. If you don't have it, rent it.

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"If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners." - Johnny Carson

I'm about to go clear the ghosts and close the dam; I'll be testing the different combos later tonight. Also, I don't know why, but when I use some of my attacks, a ring appears around the feet of the target. Any idea as to why?

That ring is the timer to pull off the aforementioned Harmonic Combo. When it vanishes, you've taken too long. The timer can be increased by powering up the duration of the skill.

I'm still loving this game. Perfect balance between fighting and RPG style play. Based on my quests, I'm starting to near the end of Chapter 3. Must find more time to play this...

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I just don't understand why I must be at work while such a perfect game is at home waiting for me to come back to it.

I just hit Chapter 2 and I am just blown away by how perfect I find this game. I can see why people might not like it and I see a lot of things I would want to see in JE 2 but for that doesn't change the fact that every moment I am playing is bliss and every moment away is suffering.

I just haven't been this blown away for a long long time. I just pray that it keeps up until the end.

I'm holding you to that Atta. Though, when I get home from work tonight I'll have to fight the urge to play EQ2 and sit down with JE. :lol:

Atta is right, those 3 quests are basically non-stop combat each, and they're not short. In fact, each of those quests may end up being a reality check for your comfort level with the combat system. I thought I knew what I was doing in combat until I hit those quests, and then I really had to learn

Harmonic combos are your friend! Not only do they kill baddies faster, but they also supply you with a reliable source of power-ups.

Something I've been wondering since I started seeing most of the starting martial styles show up for sale by certain merchants: Is there a reason to buy additional martial starter styles other than for looks? None of the starting martial styles do anything special, other than ending harmonic combos. And if you've spent training points at level up for your starter martial style, it seems kind of waste to buy another martial style. Am I missing anything here?

ya whoever made that comment bout tien at first was right - i was sittin there like come on i just wanna kung fu someones ass! no instead i get to listen to you whiney peasants but it does get better (youre prob like me and have to talk to EVERYONE - it gets long, drawn out and makes ya long for fightenin)

i like the game - i think ill like it even more as it goes on because i have only 2 complaints so far and one is i want more styles! (finally started to get a few last night so i know thats gonna end soon)

the other complaint is targetin - someone else complained bout this and its a legit one - if theres a guy to the left of you, and you hit left trigger youd think itd go to him right? youd be wrong it actually goes to the guy 20 feet back to the right go figure. other than that, man is the game awesome - i liked fable a lot so the combat for me is wicked cool you really can slap someone a couple times w/ hands, slow em then wack em with a bo pretty seamlessly. plus its beautiful - you ever go to one of those pointless promentaries and just look at some lazy river windin through hills and distant structures? wow good stuff. okay ill shut up now this is already way too long

Well, just finished the game, took me 18 hours 43 minutes. I loved every last bit of it... I may have missed a few things here or there, but I didn't rush by any stretch of the imagination. Really had a blast with this game, and loved the storyline.

The major flaw, in my opinion, is using English voice talent. Between you and me and the wall, something just ain't right about every single Asian character speaking perfect American English. The worst one was the guy who had a Southern accent. Come on! The game is based on Chinese mythology and folklore, but why not take it a step further and get more historical details in the game? Also, the ancient language some people speak is too freaky -- reminds me of garbled Star Wars alien tongues.

In the way that medieval fantasy games are based on European folklore, I can see how Bioware is trying to make an equivalent type of environment, only set in "China".

The game is fun, and has a good story. This keeps my interest. At the same time, I wish there was more authenticity of setting. This, however, is probably never going to happen for mass-market games.

I think there is good reason to buy them, but it may not apply to every one. The first style i took was leaping Tiger. This style rocks because its pretty fast, and its pretty powerful. The middle of the road type of style is how i would describe it. Ive totaly mastered the style (except for chi strike wich i never use). It does have one flaw tho, that being extreamly short range on its basic attacks. This proved to be a problem with the way some of my style combos mixed. For instance i use paralyzing palm on human opponents, then follow up with a combo from a martial style. Problem was the last part of the palm combo would knock the guy back a few steps making it where i had to switch syles and take a few steps forward so that i could hit the first strike in my Tiger combo. That does not seem like much of a problem when you read it here, but some the stun is variable based on the leevl? of your opponent. This would make it where a few people where able to block or even get a hit in on me as i stepped in to do damage. Then i bought Legendary Strike This style is akin to Bruce Lee's Jeet Kwon Do style kicks and kicks have better range. With this new style under my belt, my combo changed. Legendary Strike has better range but at its slowest its still as fast a fully maxed out Tiger. So now i hit em with a palm combo put 3 Legendary Strikes on em, and then finish with a tiger power attack. Of course then i got white demon.....

So anyway now im on the 3rd chapter.

All hail me the champ of the imperial arena, trust me boys you dont want none of this.

Man i do love this game tho. its still going strong for me and im digging the hell out of it. One major thing is starting to happen however, my followers are starting to become more important. it would be hard for me to explain this with out messing up some story, but suffice it to say they seem to be more important choice and story wise than they where in KOTOR. Remember how HK47 (i think thats his name) had that cool quest where you could hack him and repair his deleted files. Well there seems to be more of those type of interactions in this one, and im really digging it.

Anyone else talk to the english guy in the garden of scholors yet? that was some funny stuff right there.

im pretty happy with the voice over quality. I would rather hear english than read it so original speech from china is out for me. Engrish is hard to understand some times and that means id have to turn on subtitiles to be sure. All in all id rather them keep it the way it is.

I think he was my favorite NPC interaction Atta, just wish I remembered his full name.

I can't remember his name in the game too, but I'm 90% sure he was voiced by John Cleese. He sure was a tough fight though... man he loads that rifle fast!

s

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And when he had failed to find these boons in things whose laws are known and measurable, they told him he lacked imagination, and was immature because he preferred dream-illusions to the illusions of our physical creation

I think he was my favorite NPC interaction Atta, just wish I remembered his full name.

I can't remember his name in the game too, but I'm 90% sure he was voiced by John Cleese. He sure was a tough fight though... man he loads that rifle fast!

s

He was great, I loved that part. His name was Sir <something> Bastard, I forget what comes before bastard. On his breastplate was the symbol of a fork stuck through a piece of cheese. His rifle does a ton of damage, but I was able to get in close and keep him paralyzed while I ripped him t shreds. Now Mirabelle(sp?) is mine, and man does she rock at range, giving a nice focus ranged option.

Atta: thanks for the tip on the martial styles, I'll have to try that. I use tiger style, and exactly how you described with paralyzing palm, I have to move forward to close the distance after the PP combo. Something I thought was curious is that Tiger Style if bought from a merchant is significantly more expensive than either Thousand Cuts or Legendary Strike (10,000 compared to 6000 and 7500 I think). Not sure if price equals value in this case, but I thought that was interesting. You mentioned you just picked up White Demon, have you found a use for that style? It didn't really fit with my play style, but it seems strong.

I think he was my favorite NPC interaction Atta, just wish I remembered his full name.

I can't remember his name in the game too, but I'm 90% sure he was voiced by John Cleese. He sure was a tough fight though... man he loads that rifle fast!

s

Atta: thanks for the tip on the martial styles, I'll have to try that. I use tiger style, and exactly how you described with paralyzing palm, I have to move forward to close the distance after the PP combo. Something I thought was curious is that Tiger Style if bought from a merchant is significantly more expensive than either Thousand Cuts or Legendary Strike (10,000 compared to 6000 and 7500 I think). Not sure if price equals value in this case, but I thought that was interesting. You mentioned you just picked up White Demon, have you found a use for that style? It didn't really fit with my play style, but it seems strong.

Ohhh it fits, it fits like a glove on your paralyzing palm.

As for price, White demon was painful for me, i wanna way it was 14 k, but im not sure. It is worth noting that it was the last of the martial styles so that may have something to do with it. My guess is they ramp up in price based on how many you already have.

Well I tried my best, but I officially have put Jade Empire into my trade-in pile. Every time I played the game I was just bored to tears. I usually fall in love with these types of games, however I just can't get into JE for some reason.

I think it has to do with how many conversations go over certain subjects multible times, thus the feeling of "broken record" syndrom sets in. Yes I know about the flyers already, you said the same thing three times already.

Please tell me I was just dreaming when the game told me that *yet again* I must find four ancient pieces of a relic. Bioware really, really, *really* needs to put this gameplay convention in the grave.

So far (beginning of Chapter 2) its good but I'm not engaging with it like past Bioware efforts. Way too much dialogue so far and most of it seems like straight conversions from conversations I had in NWN and KOTOR. I'm starting to dread seeing the letterboxing come up for fear I'm in for yet another character's drawn out life history. Yeah, I don't have to click on every dialogue branch but I feel like otherwise I'll miss a sidequest or interesting tidbit of the plot.

Hopefully things will open up a bit in Chapter 2 and beyond and provide a bit of variety in sidequests too. Good and evil options have been way too familiar and binary too. Another convention that needs to be retired is the standard "I can keep so and so's item/money for material gain or give it back to them for an experience boost." That's just not an interesting decision anymore. The best thing I thought Obsidian brought to the table in KOTOR 2 was more interesting good and evil decisions and the rationale behind them and so far Jade Empire seems like a step down from that.

Combat is actually my favorite aspect so far although perhaps a bit easy. I might try to up the difficulty.

Graphically its a very nice upgrade from KOTOR. Excellent ambience for the most part and the animations are very fluid. The swamp was a bit of an eyesore but the rest of the game has looked very nice. Some of the character models are a bit fugly though. I do hope whatever engine Bioware uses for next-gen games uses streaming because load times like these need to become a thing of the past- really breaks the immersion.

I mentioned in another forum that my favorite thing so far with JE is I look forward to what Obsidian could do with the sequel (Provided they had time to complete the final product this time). I found the Baker Bei sidequest in the second town to be particularly disappointing, in an "ohh, come ON!" sort of way.

However, it really picked up at that point, and the Dam/Forest/Pirate Island quest trifecta in chapter 2 really had some great moments - cinematic, combat, pacing and narrative.

It has bogged down a bit now that I have entered the 3rd chapter, but I'm hoping it will pick up as it did before.

I mentioned in another forum that my favorite thing so far with JE is I look forward to what Obsidian could do with the sequel (Provided they had time to complete the final product this time). I found the Baker Bei sidequest in the second town to be particularly disappointing, in an "ohh, come ON!" sort of way.

However, it really picked up at that point, and the Dam/Forest/Pirate Island quest trifecta in chapter 2 really had some great moments - cinematic, combat, pacing and narrative.

It has bogged down a bit now that I have entered the 3rd chapter, but I'm hoping it will pick up as it did before.